Odin
by SoloMoon
Summary: A brief speculation about what might have happened if Luke had actually succeeded in overthrowing Olympus and bringing an end to modern civilization.


"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."

-Odin, _American Gods_

(There are those who say that Odin is descended from Hermes.)

They worship their god of crows and of death, the messenger who knows all, the one who no fall will ever kill, he who sees all but cannot be seen, the transporter, the wanderer, the outcast. They call him Scar-Face, Gallows-God, War-Monger, He Who Died and Was Reborn.

(They say he is one of Hermes's sons.)

This their supreme ruler, he who fought and killed the old orders, the old gods. He who brought even the mighty stormbringer under his power. The god of deals and riddles and rules, the god who speaks in lies and gambles in death. The god of a thousand thousand bastard children, himself an abandoned bastard child. The legends tell of how he blesses ships at sea and curses those who do not offer sacrifice in his name. The stories proclaim of how he came into power. How he died willingly to pursue wisdom and power, knowing he would be reborn when his enemies least expected it. How he still bore the cursed wound in his side even as he tore down the cold, ancient rulers and began again.

(They say his mother could see all and his father could tell all, those who do not say that he came from nowhere and has always been.)

He has many names. Castle-lord, Poets' Tongue, Son of the Forgotten Lord, Bringer of Rumor and War, Friend to Monsters, Breaker of Horses. Psychopomp. The legends call the man Death-Dealer, Back-Biter, Two-Sided, Killer of All, but this is mere mistranslation; they say that his sword alone is the soul of wrath. The one sometimes called All-Father allows this; he must. He knows everything there is to know, and if it displeased him surely he would have eradicated it by now. Just look at the legends of his golden-haired, far-seeing Weaver's Daughter wife who can build a great mead hall on any land; these days there are barely even whispers that she ever might have resisted his advances. These days the mortals only assume she must love him as he loves her.

(Though the connection to the crow-blest psychopomp is not hard to make, people do not often dare to do so; to repeat these whispers is to take one's life into one's hands.)

Memory is a tricky thing, enslaved to the Castle-Lord as it is; funny how no one remembers the names of that son of the sea, that city of giants and wanderers with a lady of bronze guarding its hallowed harbor. There was something that came before, and it was destroyed, but it's gone now so why should anyone bother with the past? The god living his second life brought his chosen people back to a time of mead and fire and the might of a man's sword being law, eradicating the terrible cold giants that dared scrape at the sky and (so he says) stole men's souls with the power of their touch. He had brothers, yes, but they were sold off to other lands. His wife had other suitors, some with eyes like the sea, but their names are lost to time and anyway no one should care.

(This is, of course, just nonsense. How can the Father of All have a father of his own?)

And yet still the whispers go on. The future does not bend to the Wanderer's crows the way the past does. He can only see what is to come; all attempts to change it are, ultimately, futile. Apollo's serpent stirs. Ares's wolf shifts in its bonds. Persephone cannot be denied forever. A thief will always outsmart himself if left alone too long. The people whisper: the All-Seeing One cannot keep this tyranny up forever. The day is coming when the old order will break free once more.

(When it does, the sea-wanderer with the scar on his face will not find Elysium waiting for him inside the belly of the beast.)

* * *

**A/N:** This was inspired by the fact that Norse myth scholars do, in fact, think that the concept of Odin is descended from Hermes and that Frigga is descended from Athena-I just took the whole "descended from" concept and made it more literal, as a little speculation on the fact that Norse myth is never mentioned anywhere in the Percy Jackson series and yet could theoretically still exist in that world. Castle-lord and poet-tongue are translations of "Castellan" and "Luke," respectively, and are also titles for Odin. I don't own the works of Rick Riordan or Neil Gaiman, nor yet any gods.


End file.
